Using Twitter to Counteract Hype (#Ebola) – Hashtags of the Week (HOTW): (Week of August 4, 2014)

In the last week, I don’t think there has been a moment when the trending hashtags display on my Twitter page has NOT listed “Ebola.” This is in part due to the attention resulting from two American healthcare providers having been infected with the Ebola virus while providing care, and partly also from the newest update from WHO on the outbreak in West Africa, which lists over 1500 cases and almost 900 deaths. People are panicking, and the press is going wild. This is a great opportunity to show how healthcare professionals and the broader healthcare Twitter community is using the #Ebola hashtag to help alleviate concerns and moderate anxiety, by providing informed balanced reliable information. Each of the tweets included in this post is considered a popular tweet which has already been retweeted several times and/or favorited by people reading the tweet. If you want to help calm things down, you might consider retweeting or sharing some of these popular tweets on the topic.